Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting predator control

Put up a trail cam by the house and captured a few deer.

Looks like the local coyotes are interested in the fawns. Found dead ones already this year.



Have to get out and help give the fawns a hand with the .223

predator control can be costly and really doesn't work unless done on a massive scale. the best solution is to provide plenty of habitat that helps game animals survive. never hurts to whack a few of them when you can, but they reproduce quickly.

I have the same problem. I hunt coyotes during deer season, on places that I will not deer hunt anymore that season. In the summer, I hunt and trap the coyotes . They are really hard on our deer, turkeys , quail and foxes. I have hunted the coyotes for years around here. It seems the more I kill, the more that come in to replace them.

On your deer and the foxes - yes. And that's the rub. The foxes, not the yotes are hurting your turkeys and quail. The coyote is your friend where the birds are concerned.

One study found that AT LEAST 40% of the coyotes on an average western sheep ranch had to be killed to reduce coyote predation significantly--and it had to be done year after year. Otherwise the coyotes from surrounding areas just moved in.

I know a father and son who run a huge sheep ranch in central Wyoming, and all the surrounding ranches gave up running sheep over the past 10-20 years. Consequently my friends have a worse coyote problem than ever, even though both constantly hunt coyotes, and are very good at both calling and shooting. (Both shoot .257 Weatherbys, by the way, or did the last time I visited.)

The same problem occurs with coyotes and deer. Killing a few coyotes doesn't really matter, partly there's more deer for each coyote, so the females are better-fed and have more pups that survive.

I lived in OK for 15 years and there they call 'em, trap 'em, dog 'em and even arkansas 'em out of airplanes and I never had to try too hard to find a coyote if I wanted one.

I'm sorry to disagree. In the west texas prairie/desert/cattle country it's rare to have great quail crops and requires a few years of timely rains. It is almost unbelievable 20 miles east where the sheep country is with cactus, mesquite, mixed prairie, more draws, sheep fencing, bobcats, foxes, and 10 times more quail-normally. The sheep fencing allows easy control(usually) of coyotes by snares set where they dig under. If coyotes get on the sheep, flying and gunning takes them out. Farther west where coyotes travel freely, the foxes are much more rare. I agree foxes and bobcats are rough on the quail but it's easy for a coyote to home in on a covey at night and catch one as they flush. The hawks (including kestrels) are most devastating in either area and stake out the water holes making watering an eventual suicidal act. Quail love the areas thick with cactus for the protection it affords against all but snakes.

I see a coyote I shoot a coyote............

While it might take 40% to make the dent, it's still fun shooting them. Back when I was havily involved with DU I brought up the idea of doing a varmint calling contest to raise money.

I was shot down by the very same statisitics. A contest just wouldn't do much to affect the population.

IMO - that's no reason not to try. I'd rather have 10% of something than 0%....

The odd thing is when I was in TX people wanted to charge me 150 to 250 dollars a day to go shoot coyotes on their ranch. I understand the idea of making a buck and could be cool with that for deer but dude, I'm doing YOU a favor with the coyotes. Cut a guy some slack. 200 bucks a day is a lot of money for coyotes IMO.

The way I was looking at it was, 20 years ago we had quail everywhere on the farm. If you called predators, a red or grey fox woudl show up. Hardley ever did a coyote. Now, no quail anywhere. Foxes are rare. Coyotes are all that you see.

The more coyotes you kill, the more they reproduce. In a stable population, females have their first litters at age 2 or 3 and generally give birth to 1-3 pups. Not all of those pups survive. When you start whacking a population of coyotes seriously, you upset the social fabric of pairs and packs.

Before fur prices went through the roof in the mid-1970s and every man, woman and child in Kansas was trapping, calling or shooting coyotes on sight, the coyote populations that I was studying were characterized by the reproductive statistics cited above. When hunters, trappers and opportunistic shooters killed enough coyotes, they ended up with populations in which all of the females were breeding at 1 year of age and in utero litter sizes averaged between 5 and 6. Coyote density did decrease for a couple of years, but damage complaints actually increased during the same period.

Quail are prolific breeders in good habitat. Every quail decline that has been studied and reported in the literature has been attributed to declines in habitat quality due to changes in land management or, in the case of western populations, extreme variations in weather, primarily precipitation--how much or how little and when it comes and how it affects vegetation growth.

I like to call and shoot coyotes as well as the next guy, but unless I am focusing on a problem animal, I don't kid myself that I am helping other species survive.

mudhen, talking sense again... See where that will get you.

It gets him lots of respect from me. The few educated posters on here more than make up for the others.

DP4,

right you are, and I hope my irony was conveyed. I quite follow you there.

the problem is that those ranchers have relations and friends wanting to shoot coyotes due to the popularity. In the huge area of west-central texas where sheep were raised there were/are essentially No coyotes. they had no real chance for increasing by breeding due to essentially thousands of sq miles of coyote 'no go' areas due to the fencing and snaring. That is passing due to the reduction in sheep due to wool prices. the fences remain but coyotes are tolerated more and snared less where cattle are replacing the sheep.

How do you figure? Have you never had coyotes come charging in to turkey yelps?

Dog Hunter, Yes, he was coming to the call at full speed and he met a heavy load of # 6 shot at about 18 yards. The shot left little lines in the hair up the sides of his body where the pellets tore the hair out. The surprised look on the coyote's face when my son in law raised the gun up in front of him was something I will never forget. His facial expression said "OH MY"..... or something similar to that. I was setting next to my son in law.

Without a doubt, a coyote is gonna take advantage of any opportunity. That's why you don't let your poochie dog go outside w/o supervision in downtown LA.

Of course coyotes will kill turkeys, they just aren't really good at it. Speaking of adult turkey that is. Bobcats are the real turkey hunters, very good at it. Fox are hell on poult turkeys and egg suckers to boot. Just because they aren't great at turkey hunting doesn't keep the coyote from trying it when he gets the chance. Years back I actually had a coyote grab a jake gobbler that was responding to my calling during spring turkey season. The jake was coming down a woodsline to where I was set-up in the corner, the longbeard trailing behind by 20 yards. The immature gobbler in the lead was about ten yards into the field from the woods when suddenly a yellow/gray blur blasted out of the woods and hit him like a linebacker! There was a commotion for about five seconds and the coyote trotted back into the woods with his prize. Obviously that spooked the longbeard and ruined that set-up. I had three coyotes respond to my turkey calling this past spring, not unusual. Coyote season is closed here during that time so they get a pass. I'm a predator caller and I make up for it after the first hard frost of the year about the first of October and hunt them until about mid-March. With that said, to be really effective you need kill about 60% of the coyote population in a given area and sustain that ratio for five consecutive years. Anything less than that may actually allow an increase in coyote populations in good habitat.

Most everyone has good points. This stuff is why its so hard to manage wildlife. What works in some places does not work in others. Coyotes may reduce foxes, skunks, and other nest raiders enough in one area to improve nesting success. In other areas, that may not be so. In one area coyote (or most any predator) may focus on one prey, like turkeys, but focus on other prey in a different area. They will generally eat whatever prey is available. I even read one study where a rancher (sheep, I think, if you can call that ranching- just kidding ) was having enormous coyote predation problem. Killing huge numbers of resident coyote simply resulted in immigration from surrounding areas, as was mentioned in this thread. His solution turned out to be sorta strange. All coyote hunting was discontinued which resulted in resident coyotes that protected their area from immigrants. This resulted in a stable population that could be partially trained to seek prey other than sheep. Other non-lethal methods were used to deter the coyotes from the sheep. The resident coyotes learned to avoid the sheep somewhat and predation was reduced from prior years. That probably would not work in all places, but it apparently worked there. Sorry, but forgot where it was.

Of course, its fun to hunt coyote and removing a portion may reduce predation temporarily. So, I say shoot 'em up? Put the hide money in the kid's college fund.